Jitters

F

irst aired December 11, 2001

Clark (Tom Welling) and Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) team up
to rescue Clark's high school class after a janitor (guest star Tony Todd) takes
them hostage in LuthorCorp. He claims his deadly "jitters" were caused by a
mysterious contaminant and threatens to kill everyone unless he is shown a
secret sublevel - which Lionel Luthor (guest star John Glover, Batman &
Robin) denies ever existed.

Detailed Description:

Freak of the Week: Earl Jenkins (Tony Todd) is a former
worker at a at the LuthorCorp fertilizer plant, at a secret Level 3 that
both Lionel (John Glover) and Lex
Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) deny
exists. Earl is now very sick he claims comes from a strange green mist
he saw at the plant. Before working at the plant, he used to work with
the Kent's on their farm. Earl's sickness is uncontrollable jitters, that
cause him to accidentally kill a man. Since no one believes him, he
takes hostage a whole class of Smallville High students who were touring
LuthorCorp. The class includes Lana Lang (Kristin
Kreuk), Whitney Fordman (Eric
Johnson), Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack),
Pete Ross (Sam Jones III) and Clark
Kent (Tom Welling).
In order to find out the truth about his father's secrets, Lex
volunteers himself as a hostage if Earl will release the students. As a
gas leak begins, Lionel orders the shutdown of the plant, prepared to
let his son die inside. Clark arrives to rescue Lex, and they find out
that the Level 3 really did exist. Earl dies from his jitters, and Lex
confronts his father who refuses to give him answers.

Character Development: We see more clearly the
relationship between Lex and his father. His father is willing to
sacrifice his son in the plant, and lies to the public about the secret
Level 3. Lionel is also more concerned about answering the press'
questions than his son's. However, in front of the cameras, Lionel
attempts to appear as the loving father, patting Lex on the back.
Clark used his x-ray vision to find Lex and Earl and the secret Level 3,
and Lex still wonders how Clark managed to find them, rescue him from a
falling catwalk and stop a gas leak.
At the end of the episode, we see Lex looking enviously as Clark
embraces his parents, Martha (Annette
O'Toole) and Jonathan Kent (John
Schneider).

Notes:

Tony Todd is best known as The Candyman from the movies
of the same name and he played a host of Star Trek characters.

Although this is Gabe Sullivan's (Robert Wisden) first
appearance in the show, he was in a deleted scene in the pilot episode.

This was the fourth episode in production order - scenes
from it were originally used at the end of the third complete episode "Hothead" to promote the next week's episode
(although they aired "X-Ray" instead).

In the scene where Clark sees a room containing the
fertilizer plant's floor plans, Clark can be seen running around in
LuthorCorp's plant via the security cameras. So why doesn't Lex or other
people working at the plant discover that?

Lex gives Clark the third degree on saving him - it's not
that unusual for someone on an adrenaline rush could pull this off. The
question is, how did Clark do it when he was being weakened to below
human strength by exposure to a green-radiated Earl nearby?

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